


Mercenary Without A Soul

by rebelmeg



Series: Rebelmeg's Bucky Barnes Bingo 2019 [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, Bucky Barnes Dies, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Character Death, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Steve Rogers Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:27:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21982906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelmeg/pseuds/rebelmeg
Summary: What if the Asset had succeeded in his mission, in killing Captain America?  What would have been left after Steve no longer breathed and Bucky had no reason to fight anymore?Written for my BBB square U5 - mercenary
Series: Rebelmeg's Bucky Barnes Bingo 2019 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1448674
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2019





	Mercenary Without A Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Babes, go read the tags. Now go read them again. This is horrific angst with no happy ending. Make sure you want to proceed. Promise I won't be hurt if you don't.
> 
> [Gavilan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gavilan/pseuds/Gavilan) was my wonderful beta for this fic, and you have her to thank for the fact that there is an end to the suffering instead of an open-ended horror-fest.

“You’re. My. Mission!”

“Then finish it. ‘Cause I’m with you, til the end of the line.”

It was there. It... He? The flashes of images, snatches of sound, that voice beneath him in a different body, bloody and screaming and falling.

He couldn’t move.

Until he could.

And he hit with every fragment of strength left in his battered body. He felt the crunch of bone under his metal fist when it found its target.

He could hear the heart under that white star stutter… and stop.

The glass and metal they were on started to give way, and the Asset watched as the lifeless body fell along with the glass. Watched as it hit the water, one of a dozen big splashes of debris falling from the flaming, ruined Helicarriers.

It didn’t come back up.

And somewhere inside the Asset, some fragment of memory and soul that hadn’t been fragile enough to fade away over the decades of torture… finally broke. And was no more.

* * *

He had nothing. No mission, no orders, not even a name. 

The Asset was equipped to survive short-term on missions. But like this? Truly on his own? He was all but helpless.

He only knew how to do two things. Follow orders, and kill. So he did the only thing that made sense. He found the kind of people that had orders to give, followed those orders, and fought and killed, in exchange for money.

After a while, they started calling him the Soldier. He didn’t have a name, nothing he answered to, anyway, and those in the market for the kind of services he offered knew who he was without a name. He was the kind of mercenary that would do anything, ask no questions, and he never, ever failed.

He was the perfect soulless machine that did the bidding of the darker parts of humanity. Sometimes he didn’t even care if he was paid or not, though he charged less than others in his field. He needed the weight of a weapon in his hands, and a task before him, far more than he needed the money.

Was it so surprising that nobody ever found a reason to ask why?

* * *

The Asset sat at a small, shabby kitchen table in the tiny kitchenette, the gathering dusk turning the already dim space even darker. An empty plate sat before him, the meal already eaten. He didn’t know or care what he ate. It was merely fuel. The taste didn’t matter.

He finished the glass of water sitting next to the empty plate, more necessary fuel that brought no pleasure or displeasure whatsoever. He took the dishes to the sink, washing them efficiently and putting them away with the others. He had only what he needed. Plate, bowl, glass, table spoon, fork, table knife, pot, pot lid, serving spoon, kitchen knife. Anything else was an unnecessary waste of space.

He organized the food he would eat in six hours, then made his way into the small room that made up the rest of the small apartment he lived in. It was full dark outside now, and a tiny automatic light that had been plugged into the wall when he moved in was the only illumination. There was a bare mattress on the floor, taking up most of the room, and that was where the Asset headed. He took off his boots and set them aside, then sat on the bed, motionless and staring at nothing. His weapons, the only thing he really spent his money on, were perfectly serviced and ready to go, waiting for him, for the next text or call from a client.

Minutes ticked over into hours as he sat, always unmoving. Sometimes he slept, but mostly he sat. He could survive with little sleep if he had to, but until he received his next order, there was nothing else for the Asset to do. There was nothing else he knew how to do, just following orders and killing. So he sat, waiting for the next mission, the next order, the next kill.

That was all he was now. A fist with no purpose. A soldier with no war. A mercenary that didn’t really need payment. A body existing without a soul.

* * *

More than anything else, it was a relief when the bullet found him. He never heard it coming, but something in him knew it was on the approach nonetheless. 

And in that split second between alive and dead, when the Asset could feel the cross-hairs lining up, all he felt was the most foreign sensation of peace.

Letting go was the easiest order he’d ever followed.


End file.
